Ok so with Black Panther Wakanda Forever now out on Disney Plus, I thought I’d revisit the movie to point out some of the best easter eggs, hidden details and things you missed in it. These are things that I haven’t seen pointed out in other videos and they’re some of the smallest details in the movie that you might have missed when watching it. Now the movie centres around Shuri taking up the mantle of Black Panther in the wake of her brother T’challa’s death.
Chadwick Boseman’s passing left a big hole in the franchise and the actor’s real life death influenced the film in several ways. Beyond the obvious plot points the creative team left a tribute to the late actor in the movie and this happens when Everett Ross is sprung from the prison transport. We can see that the licence plate reads CB112976. The CB actually stands for Chadwick Boseman with the numbers representing his birthday on the 29th of November 1976.
Now the idea of grief is laced throughout the film and it’s actually a major part of Phase 4. Wanda had to deal with the loss of her children and Vision, Black Widow ended with Yelena grieving Natasha, Shang-Chi was changed by the loss of his mother and No Way Home deal with the death of Aunt May.
Shuri’s opening in Wakanda Forever
Two characters you might not think are similar though are Gorr and Shuri. In the opening of the movie, we watch her praying to Bast to save her brother and this is similar to Gorr praying to his God to save his daughter. Neither of their prayers are answered and thus both become angry and bitter for some time. Bast of course also appeared in Love and Thunder during the Gods scene in which we also saw the Mayan God Ketzo-kotal.
It’s devastating that Shuri couldn’t be with her brother in his final moments as she was trying to save him rather than accepting his inevitable passing.
Now Shuri has always been more science based rather than believing in Gods and Religion. In the comics this actually had a lot of repercussions and during Black Panther Issue 4 from 2009 she was denied the mantle because of her arrogance.
When Shuri’s mother Ramonda is killed these pushes her further down the path of anger and both this side and her arrogance are why she meets Killmonger on the ancestral plane. This happens in the throne room which is of course where her mother died. She even begins where Ramonda was, submerged in the water just beside the platform.
We watch as this is set on fire mirroring the burning of the herb garden in the first black panther film. However, it has a deeper meaning as Shuri says.
- If I burn these robes
In the scene we can see Shuri also wearing her funeral robes showing how this idea has carried across to this moment.
When she’s taken out by Ramonda, we see Elephants, and these actually have complex mourning rituals when another Elephant dies. The animals possess empathy, and they bury their dead and even hold funerals for the ones they’ve lost similar to the burning of the robes.
Come the end of the film we watch as her mind races and reverses the war to the point that she sees her mother. This is who the character actually wanted to see on the ancestral plane, and this finally gives her the wisdom of her ancestors to stop this self-destructive cycle.
Upon gaining her powers she hits a mannequin across the room, and this is something that her brother did in the first movie when visiting her lab.
Like Shuri, Killmonger actually made a synthetic herb in the comics which further pushed him down the road of taking the secretive power of Wakanda and using it elsewhere like he did in the movie. He eventually gave this to Kevin Cole, and he ended up becoming the White Tiger.
In the opening scene we hear Shuri’s AI who is voiced by Trevor Noah. Though this AI appeared in the first movie it’s clearly had some upgrades and in Infinity War, Shuri was able to Map visions brain when trying to remove the Mind Stone. I think she’s applied some of this to her own technology and the visualisation of the AI itself is even yellow like the stone is.
The AI is named Griot, and this is named after a West African Storyteller which Shuri actually met in the comics when visiting the ancestral plane.
Shuri ends up holding the helmet up in front of her and this is actually a nod to Shuri Issue 2 from 2018.
Now the funeral procession sees everyone wearing white. The first Black Panther movie was coming hot off the back of Civil War in which the King died, and we actually saw this reflected in the movie. When T’Challa returned to the Kingdom we saw both his mother and sister wearing white because they were grieving for T’Chaka.
Beside his coffin we can also catch his spear and shield, and these are what the character fought with during the trials in the first movie. Speaking of spears and shields, the Talocanians fight with them throughout the movie and at the end of the film we can see that they use turtle shells as a defence.
At the funeral we see a mural for him and the text around this reads The Panther King Forever Lives in Us, He Is Now with The Ancestors.
Everyone does the Wakandan Salute, and this actually means Love in American Sign Language. This idea of crossing is even seen in the two ships that fly across the sky and they create an X behind the ship.
They use T’challa’s helmet from Civil War and this was picked for an important reason. T’challa’s arc in that revolved around him getting vengeance for his father’s death much like how Shuri’s does in this film. Both decide to not let vengeance consume them in the end and this line is echoed come the end of the film.
Shuri wears white face paint to create dots on her and this is something that she also did in the previous black panther movie when fighting against Killmonger. This later gets incorporated into her mask and culturally they were worn by the Suri tribe which is also where the character’s name originally pulls from.
At the funeral we can also see statues of Bashenga and his wife. Bashenga was the first Black Panther and in front of the pair we can also see two panther statues.
Gods and ancestry are laced throughout the film, and this is seen in several facets of the movie. Originally in the comics Namor was Atlantean however this was changed to Talocan so that the character wouldn’t clash with DC’s Aquaman. Talocan actually has roots in our own world and Tlalocan with an L after the first t was believed to be a paradise by the Aztecs. Those that died by drowning were absorbed by it and it was ruled over by the rain god Chaak who gets mentioned by Namor later on.
The UN scene in Wakanda Forever
Now after the funeral and title sequence we cut to the UN. We find out that France was attempting to take the vibranium and they actually colonised parts of Haiti where we learn Nakia has fled to. Here she has raised her son in secret, and we learn that he’s going under the name Toussaint. Toussaint is actually the name of a Haitian general called Toussaint Louverture who fought against the French for independence. This thematically ties it back to this opening and it’s possible that Wakanda knew of this due to their spy network.
In the first film Killmonger said that they had spies in every nation across the globe and they could’ve infiltrated the French government.
You might catch Toussaint early on and he is with the three children that go to Ramonda.
Now here we also meet the US secretary of state played by Richard Schiff. We actually know who the president is at this point because of the cast listing for Secret Invasion and he will be called President Ritson. This name actually pops up later on in a news ticket and we can see the text, Ritson signs trade pact with New Asgard.
Due to his role in secret invasion, I think he might actually end up becoming a Skrull and this will be a big twist. We know that Harrison Ford is going to be taking over as Thaddeus Ross in the MCU and in Thunderbolts he’ll be the President. That’s just a bit of theory time, theory time, theory time, but they do need to explain why there’s a new president and having one who’s a general would make sense since the Skrulls pose such a security risk.
Now early on we get another News Ticker and this talks about Scott Lang touring the Book Look Out for The Little Guy. A reading of this is coming up in Ant-Man and The Wasp Quantumania which will end up building off the back of this.
Anyway, a war between the surface and Talocan is started off with Namor and his forces attacking a US ship. This is shot almost like a horror movie, and it pulls a lot of iconographies from the book Namor the Depths. In that he attacks a submarine and hunts divers in the dark similar to what happens here when they carry out the expedition.
Back in Wakanda we get several cool little easter eggs including a water drummer played by Jabari Exum. This guy is actually a movement coach that works for marvel, and he helped to choreograph the fight scenes for this film and the last one. Part of Jabari’s training involving drumming away whilst the actors carry out the moves in order to create a rhythm and this is why they picked him a to play a water drummer in the film.
After Namor shows up to Wakanda they convene the council, and we see M’Baku walking in. He’s eating a carrot and in the first movie he said.
- Ee are vegetarian.
In the first film they didn’t have a seat on the council, but they now do after T’Challa welcomed them down from the mountains.
Now we learn this is all connected to Riri Williams aka Iron Heart. I’m a bit meh on her costume at the end but there is a nice detail that they did in the final one. Her name is of course Iron Heart and they made it so that her shoulders make a heart symbol when she’s wearing it.
I actually love her first costume and when she is ripping off the blueprints on her board, we can actually see that this is the mark one prototype.
This initial flight is of course similar to the one that Tony took in his Mark 2 and there are moments that clearly riff on things Tony has done in the MCU. Both scenes have them flying upwards which causes issues with their ability to fly. The flights both end with them then crashing to the ground like his how it goes with the frosting. We even end up getting a similar scene at the end to the one in Infinity War when Tony blasts into the sky.
Also, I love how Okoye calls the iPhone primitive.
Now speaking of crappy costumes, we see the Midnight Angels one, but this is actually pretty comic books accurate so guess we can’t be mad.
Okoye ends up being stripped of her rank after that sweet, sweet fight scene on the bridge and thus she ends up joining this group later on. In a nice bit of attention to detail Ayo ends up wearing gold in her armour for the rest of the movie because she’s now the general in her place.
Shuri is captured and taken to Talocan which has lots of nods to Aztec culture. This includes the game Pesapallo. This involves hitting a ball through a hoop and we see these lining the structures. Another detail that you might notice here is that the Talocanians don’t have blue skin. Upon reaching oxygen rich environments their skin colour changes just in the same way that blood goes from blue to red when it oxidizes.
Ramonda ends up going to Nakia and her war dog past is mentioned. In the comics this was an intelligence agency used by Wakanda to scout the rest of the world. Kilmongers father was one of these and this led him to his Oakland mission that started off the first movie.
They used covert tactics, and this is why Nakia later dons a disguise complete with the classic Clark Kent glasses trick, so no one recognises her.
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Talokan in Wakanda Forever
Spam over and Namor shows Shuri about his kingdom. We also see his artwork and these paintings only exist on the land because you obviously can’t paint under water.
One thing you might notice about the text and subtitles is that they’re golden for Wakandan whereas for the Talocanians they’re blue.
The herb itself is also blue and it leads the people into the water. Namor is a mutant and much like the comics he’s one of the first. He learned this from Professor X originally told him this and he’s represented both Atlantis and The Mutants in the source Material.
Namor has built a gigantic empire and later on he drops his catchphrase Imperius Rex.
This actually translates from Latin to Empire King, and it’s said as a war cry in the comics to anyone who dares to defy him.
Nakia launches a rescue mission and upon being picked up we see as the group are pulled up into a ship through a tractor beam. This is also how T’challa’s casket is lifted at the start of the movie. During the first black panther T’Challa fell from a huge height and survived and there is potential that this tractor beam was used at this point to help slow his descend.
Due to Nakia killing some of his people he launches an attack on Wakanda and there’s a really subtle moment that hints at the incoming attack. When she is sitting talking to Okoye if you look at the ground under the archway you can actually see that water is slowly starting to come in. I love this little bit in the scene, and it foreshadows in the big incoming attack.
This pulls directly from the comics and in the Avengers Vs X-men run Namor ended up unleashing a tidal wave on the nation. Ramonda ends up dying and she does this whilst saving Riri.
Now whilst all this is going on we have the US government in the background who are planning to go to war with Wakanda.
Everett Ross says that it’s a bad idea and this is similar to Black Panther Volume 4 issue 1.
Eventually Shuri gets the suit and shows up to the Jibari tribe. She comes in from the sky and as she lands, we can see her legs getting a purple glow to them which is the suit absorbing the kinetic energy of the impact. This is reflected in the fight with Namor and every time he hits her, we see a flash of purple. The troops mount up, we get some great green screen, and it leads to all-out war in the ocean.
Shuri creates hand canons within the suit, and this of course calls back to her doing it in the first film. As she skims along the side of the ship you can see that the sparks, she’s creating are so hot that they’re burning blue instead of orange. This is because of the heat required to cut Vibranium and it’s a really nice detail.
Shuri ends up pretty much boiling Namor alive and this is in order to evaporate the moisture within his body.
She rips off one of his little chicken wing things, but he stabs her with a spear similar to how Killmonger was taken out in the prior movie. She breaks free though and uses fire to take Namor out which is of course the opposite element to water. This was foreshadowed in the throne room with the water Namor brought in being an opposite to the fire that Killmonger creates. Fire represents chaos but Shuri manages to reign in it after seeing a vision of her mother.
Namor sees a vision of his mother too and as we know she loved the surface world which is why he returned her body there upon her death. He’s reminded that the surface isn’t really his enemy and that they can find common ground which ends the battle.
Now I have seen some confusion over the trial at the waterfall, but this does leave M’Baku as the king. In the first movie we watched a ritual like this playing out and T’Challa only had to defend the kingdom because he was challenged. As that challenge is unmet, M’Baku gets to become the king.
Shuri goes to burn her brothers’ robes and as Ramonda said earlier in the film.
–
This is new relationship with a loved one that has passed on is of course represented in T’challa’s son. Shuri didn’t know about him until now, but the burning creates a new relationship with the brother she lost as she now gets to help raise his child.
It’s a sad and sombre way to end the movie and that closes out our Wakanda Forever breakdown.
I hope you enjoyed it and as I mentioned up top this is just the more obscure details and links to the comics that we haven’t seen mentioned in other videos. If you want a scene-by-scene breakdown, then definitely go check out Ryan Arey’s video on the movie. See that was nice wasn’t it…that was…
Dear me man Greg.
Anyway, that’s the video and if you want something else to watch then check out our breakdown of TAR which will be linked on screen right now. Lots of cool little details in it that Jared goes through bit by bit so definitely head over there right after this. With that out the way, thanks for sitting through the video and I’ll see you next time. Take care, peace.
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